EAST LANSING, Mich. — The second-half meltdown Northwestern suffered in its 75-43 loss to Michigan State was all that Spartans coach Joanne McCallie needed to erase a troubling memory burned into her mind earlier this season.
In its Big Ten opener, Michigan State was outplayed in almost every possible way in giving NU its first regular-season conference win in almost three years. The 52-46 loss on Jan. 2 in Evanston was an ugly one, as the Spartans shot 28 percent from the field and made only half of their 14 free-throw attempts.
Fast forward two months and nine Big Ten wins later, and McCallie sees a different Spartans team.
“It’s hard to go back and reflect on that game,” McCallie said. “Frankly, I don’t want to.”
For NU coach June Olkowski, any hope of matching the good result that her team got at Welsh-Ryan Arena disappeared in a blinding barrage of second-half turnovers and missed shots.
“They shut us out defensively and we didn’t get as good looks,” Olkowski said. “You have to give them credit — they played a great game, and they didn’t so much (in Evanston).”
Compared to the last meeting between the two squads, Michigan State improved on a lot of things, and the Cats worsened.
For one thing, Michigan State had a 22 percentage point improvement from the field.
As for the Cats, they couldn’t buy a second half 3-pointer — a usual staple of the NU offense — or hold onto the ball.
“I think we just started to panic,” NU center Sarah Kwasinski said. “They came out strong in the second half, shut us down and we started giving the ball away.”
NU turned the ball over 23 times in East Lansing, after committing only 10 give-aways in Evanston.
But Kwasinski said the difference in the two games can be attributed more to a change in NU than a change in the Spartans.
“I think (Michigan State) was the same today, ” Kwasinski said. “I mean, they improved as the season went on, as most teams do. But this team today wasn’t the same team that played Illinois.”
The game was much more of a shootout this time around, as the two teams combined to score 70 points in the first half alone. Back in Evanston, the Spartans and Cats scored a total of 39 first-half points, nearly matched by Michigan State’s first-half total on Sunday.
But McCallie doesn’t want to look at the two games on the same level.
“I can’t even start comparing them,” she said. “Obviously, both teams are better. But in Evanston we weren’t tough at all, and they were.”
For Olkowski, the monumental win two months ago is now a faded memory.
“I think I heard Joanne say (on Jan. 2) that they just didn’t want it as much as we did,” she said. “Today, her team wanted it — they came out prepared.”
